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  <div class="section" id="module-distutils">
<span id="distutils-building-and-installing-python-modules"></span><h1>28.1. <a class="reference internal" href="#module-distutils" title="distutils: Support for building and installing Python modules into an existing Python installation."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">distutils</span></tt></a> &#8212; Building and installing Python modules<a class="headerlink" href="#module-distutils" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p>The <a class="reference internal" href="#module-distutils" title="distutils: Support for building and installing Python modules into an existing Python installation."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">distutils</span></tt></a> package provides support for building and installing
additional modules into a Python installation.  The new modules may be either
100%-pure Python, or may be extension modules written in C, or may be
collections of Python packages which include modules coded in both Python and C.</p>
<p>Most Python users will <em>not</em> want to use this module directly, but instead
use the cross-version tools maintained by the Python Packaging Authority. In
particular,
<a class="reference external" href="https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/setuptools.html">setuptools</a> is an
enhanced alternative to <a class="reference internal" href="#module-distutils" title="distutils: Support for building and installing Python modules into an existing Python installation."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">distutils</span></tt></a> that provides:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>support for declaring project dependencies</li>
<li>additional mechanisms for configuring which files to include in source
releases (including plugins for integration with version control systems)</li>
<li>the ability to declare project &#8220;entry points&#8221;, which can be used as the
basis for application plugin systems</li>
<li>the ability to automatically generate Windows command line executables at
installation time rather than needing to prebuild them</li>
<li>consistent behaviour across all supported Python versions</li>
</ul>
<p>The recommended <a class="reference external" href="https://pip.pypa.io/">pip</a> installer runs all
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">setup.py</span></tt> scripts with <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">setuptools</span></tt>, even if the script itself only
imports <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">distutils</span></tt>. Refer to the
<a class="reference external" href="https://packaging.python.org">Python Packaging User Guide</a> for more
information.</p>
<p>For the benefits of packaging tool authors and users seeking a deeper
understanding of the details of the current packaging and distribution
system, the legacy <a class="reference internal" href="#module-distutils" title="distutils: Support for building and installing Python modules into an existing Python installation."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">distutils</span></tt></a> based user documentation and API
reference remain available:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><a class="reference internal" href="../install/index.html#install-index"><em>Installing Python Modules (Legacy version)</em></a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="../distutils/index.html#distutils-index"><em>Distributing Python Modules (Legacy version)</em></a></li>
</ul>
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